anthems for a seventeen-year-old girl
by but seriously
Summary: "Freaking great," she groans, slumping back against his arm. "I just have to die on my birthday, don't I? It's like the universe is conspiring against me. It's not even poetic."


**I'd originally written this on my tumblr, one of those on-the-whim askbox fic requests, for Alana - and because of that it's HUGELY unedited. This was way back in 2014! There are still quite a few stories on my tumblr and ao3 not published here on ffnet, but I figured... why not this one make its debut, six years after its birth?**

**Please excuse the formatting and the lack of capitalisation. at that time, it had felt right.**

**set in mid-season 3, but events aren't exactly in chronological order. hope you like it, alana.**

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**anthems for a seventeen-year-old girl**

**part i**

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—

"are you sure?" it's quaint. the windows are lined with flowers. the sun looks like it'd never duck behind a cloud, like not even rain could turn it away. "it's so… sunny."

"that's the idea, isn't it? sunny, sunny mystic falls."

"mom."

"and the occasional fog."

"_mom_."

"it's summer, honey. what else do you expect?"

—

more than this, if she's being honest.

the realtor had promised her a teenage dream. literally quoted katy perry right at her. she walks through the neighbourhoods and ducks around kids dragging bright red wagons, tapping on their little tamagotchis, and sees not one person her age lounged on the painted porches or driving around in dusty convertibles with the top down.

—

caroline finds herself in the woods.

walks a little bit further, rubs leaves between her fingers as she goes, snaps twigs and overgrown roots under her scuffed shoes.

gets lost for a good hour.

finds a lake.

it's beautiful, a cobalt blue mirror lined with grey and black boulders, ferns peeking out of the shallow edges. she sees entire worlds in the surface of the water that never dares ripple, studies her reflection with her lonely gaze. her eyes disappears completely against the bright, bright, blue.

god, she needs friends.

—

she changed her mind. she doesn't want _these _friends.

"mom!"

a clatter, a bang, and she's crashed her way into the sheriff's office, heart livid, lips torrid, face morbid. and everything else that rhymes with it, but she can't think of any right now because—

"_seriously_? I just saw someone bite a girl! with his _teeth_. he _licked the blood off his teeth_."

"did he see you?" liz asks, alarmed, and reaches for her gun holster, an impulse she's never been able to shake.

she wrings her hands. she was doing _fine_. she was talking to a girl. elena something. pretty, lithe, almost as tall as she was. and some guy just came into the grille and _bit her neck_.

what the fuck.

_"caroline."_

"no," she says finally. because she'd seen all those movies, okay? the guy had sharp teeth, teeth meant to bite, mutilate, kill. she'd grabbed a knife and jammed it straight through the guy's chest - liz would have been so proud, but what the _fuck_, why were people not reacting at all? and why was liz not booking it out of the office, kicking ass, reading rights, taking names?

"caroline," liz says again. she's oddly calm. "there's something you need to know."

—

his name is damon salvatore.

he has a thing for brunettes.

and despite already having a sneaking suspicion, she so wasn't prepared when her mother said it. vampire.

i ordered chinese tonight. there's that old sandra bullock movie playing on the tv, could you go tivo it? by the way, most of our neighbours are vampires. i'm in alliance with them to protect this town.

what is her life, an LJ Smith novel?

please.

—

so there's this thing. vervain. apparently she's supposed to drink it every morning. in her tea, in her lemonade, in the bottles she brings when she jogs. it tastes like tap water and she's doubtful it'll work, but whatever.

better safe than dead. you couldn't even feel sorry for yourself if you're dead.

damon, she's ready for you.

—

and damon has a brother.

he's broody. like, a lot.

if only someone had told her all she needed to do to find people her age—people eternally her age—was to step into the mystic grille.

stefan is his name, and apparently he has a thing for brunettes, too - only he's better at hiding it. he's nice, when he's not eyeing her neck in a really hungry way.

"so you're a vampire," she says.

he shrugs. "you're the sheriff's daughter? a forbes?"

is that all she amounts to? the sheriff's daughter?

"how's elena?" why isn't she dead?

"she's safe," he says. he's looking at her with a cool expression. "i'm keeping her safe."

—

this is it. this is mystic falls. this is salvation.

knowledge will keep you alive.

she spends her days in the library combing through the archives, squinting at old latin texts and wearing out her google translate app, and spends nights prowling around the neighbourhood with her hand curled around a stake some guy named alaric gave liz.

she's not buffy, and she's far from what a sheriff's daughter should be, but she'd seen the way elena's eyes had widened and her breath had strangled with blood. sometimes she lingers outside elena's house, wondering if she should come in, but it seemed a little weird.

they don't even know each other.

but she walks around with a stake in her hand, waiting. for what exactly, she doesn't know.

she just waits.

—

caroline meets bonnie. bonnie's a witch.

she wonders why they don't bother keeping any of this a secret.

bonnie looks at her strangely. "you're the sheriff's daughter. you're entitled to know. because one day, you're going to have to take over your mother's duty. to protect this town."

she feels her face go cold, her hands go clammy. "you mean i'll never get to leave this place?"

it sounds like a choking.

bonnie looks at her almost sadly. "if it makes you feel any better, we'll all still be here."

—

it does not.

—

"i want you to turn me," she tells stefan.

stefan blinks at her. "no."

"fine." she crosses her arms over her chest. "i'll go find damon. there's a chance he'll just straight up kill me, so why don't we go with this the easy way and you let me have your blood."

at his silence, she adds, "i did my research."

stefan's brows furrow. "what makes you think i care if you live or die?"

"because you cared enough to turn it all off in the first place. and one day, when you do decide that you've had enough of this _oh look at me i'm so sexy and emotionless_ pseudo-life you're living, you'll think back and remember me." she wants to smile, but doesn't. "that's all it takes, i find. remembering."

stefan searches her eyes. "there's a ball tonight. come with me."

—

"who the hell are the mikaelsons?" caroline asks, gloves pulled up to her elbows as stefan twirls her around the room.

"it's a long story," stefan says. "one you won't be able to find in the archives."

"so are you going to turn me or what?"

stefan looks down at her thoughtfully. "you know, you're exactly his type. tenacious."

"whose type?"

—

"you're not going to turn me," she realizes when they're walking out towards the terrace.

"no," stefan says, shaking his head. it kind of sounds like a _sorry_. "why are you always keeping tabs on elena?"

she shrugs. "i feel like she might be important in the integral part of my character development arc here. she feels important, anyway. important enough for damon to bite. what's his deal?"

"damon bites everyone."

"he didn't bite me."

"you stabbed him before he could. nice one, by the way."

"stefan."

stefan's quiet for a bit. he takes a sip of his champagne so she does the same. it's pink, and underneath all that effervescence tastes a little rusty on her tongue - but then again she's always been a tequila girl.

"sometimes he'd rather have her dead than not have her at all."

she lowers her eyes.

"and you'd rather be dead than to be tied down to prophecy."

she looks out into the mikaelsons' vast lawn. "i don't want to die here."

stefan offers a cynical little smile. "yeah. it's like a whole other dimension of being stuck."

—

you would know, wouldn't you?

—

"there's someone i want you to meet," stefan says. he twirls her around, and she's coiled like a spring - one moment she's pressed to his chest and the next she's being sprung into someone else's.

she lets out a quiet grunt, but manages to make it a lot more graceful than it sounds, banging into someone's chest. she's been to cotillion. daddy was proud. liz hadn't seen the point.

"klaus," stefan nods.

she rests her hand against klaus' hard, tuxedo-covered chest and pushes away. he smelled like the champagne: expensive, enticing, but hard and metallic.

klaus looks at them a little oddly, but then his mouth curves into a smile. it's almost mocking. "stefan. glad you're able to take a day off from foiling my plans for a little dance. where's elena?"

"with damon," stefan says simply. "this is caroline, my date."

"hello, caroline." klaus takes her offered hand, but instead of a shake he lowers his lips to graze her knuckles, and his thumb beats out a soft, steady rhythm against the side of her palm.

she starts, just a little.

it's her heartbeat.

—

"so are you like, stefan's best friend?" she's barely aware of what she's saying - klaus is looking at her with a scrutiny that is almost painful. stefan's standing in the corner, making small talk with bonnie, but she can feel his eyes on them.

he'd want her to look at him.

so she does.

blue meets blue, and she gets the sense that stefan's shoved her into some brackish black waters, without even bothering to ask if she could swim.

klaus is leading her; graceful and guile. "we were mates in the twenties. they tell you everything, don't they?"

"mostly i figure them out for myself," she replies as he pulls, releases, pulls again.

"now why would you even want to be a vampire, love?" he smiles at her, dark and roguish. "elena seems quite content the way she is."

"elena isn't condemned to this life." she sneaks a glance at stefan over klaus's shoulder, hating him. "she can leave any time she wants."

"she just refuses to," klaus murmurs.

"not until everyone's safe," she says back, just as quiet as he. "from you."

"ah, so you've figured out i'm the big bad, have you?" he looks a little pleased, a little smug, and she realizes she hates him, too.

"you smell like blood," she says through her teeth. "and i have no idea why you're even dancing with me."

klaus tilts his head. the song is swindling to a close, but he still hasn't let her go. "i think very highly of stefan, sweetheart."

"oh my god, you are _not_ best-friend-analyzing me," she scoffs with a roll of her eyes.

"of course not." and there's that smile again, his cheeks dimpling. "i'm stealing you away."

he sweeps her across the floor.

—

"what would your mother think?"

she's looking out his window. his study is in the quietest corner of the house, with stone arches and messy worktables. she's a little surprised. the stone and the medieval grandeur; she'd been expecting that.

the mess, not so much.

there's a sketchpad on the table next to where she's placed her fingers, leaning her weight down on them. "my mother brought me here without as much as a warning."

"it seems a little selfish, love - don't you think?" he's nursing a whiskey. the fireplace crackles behind him. he's studying her. she wonders what fascinates him the most.

what is it with elder vampires and their fixation with teenage angst?

are they stuck in that state of curious abandon forever?

she's not even eighteen yet. she thinks about sex all the time, but steven had assured her she'll grow out of it. what if she turns now - will she ever grow out of it? her body, locked in this permanent state of… wanting.

wanting to know, wanting to see, wanting to live, wanting to die.

"it's my life," she says, her breath fogging up the glass. "i can be selfish if i want. i'm taking my destiny into my own hands."

"you think it's unfair."

"no shit, sherlock," she mutters under her breath.

he chuckles, a little reluctantly. a little angrily, from all the way across the big, vaulted, room. of course he can hear her.

he likes to be taken seriously.

she flips open his sketchpad. as expected, it's all dark and gore and blood and intricate details of the human anatomy. she thinks she's seen some of them in an art history textbook once.

"everyone wants to live forever," he tells her. when had he come up right next to her?

vampire, she reminds herself.

klaus takes the sketchbook from her and turns the pages. it's filled of the faces of crying, bleeding people. it flows through the stiff pages like the river styx, neverending. "but not everyone is willing to pay the price."

she looks at him with a new kind of fear stilled in her heart. "do you remember everyone you've killed?"

"every one of them," he says, deathly quiet.

he tosses his sketchbook down.

—

"you made quite an impression."

caroline sits up in her bed with a start. her braid spills down over one shoulder. "i thought you needed an invitation to come in."

stefan steps inside her room, looking out of place in his dark leather jacket amongst the yellow of her walls, the old cheer trophies lining her shelves, the boxes she hasn't yet unpacked. "your mom let me in."

"it's after midnight."

he smirks. "do you have somewhere to be, cinderella?"

cinderella makes it home. she's way ahead of her. "why did you do that? he could have killed me."

"isn't that what you wanted?"

"i wanted to be a _vampire,_ stefan." she's so upset she can't look him in the eye. "i wanted to get out of here, one way or another. i don't want to be tied down to human conventions. i get the sense that he doesn't care much for it either. _he could have killed me_."

stefan folds himself into her aquashy armchair; looks uncomfortable when he sinks three inches. "but he didn't."

"must have been in a good mood," she mumbles. "what is it that he does again?"

"he turns werewolves into hybrids." stefan's lip curls. "with elena's blood."

"hybrids?"

stefan's eyebrows bobs. it does that a lot. "half vampire, half werewolf. and before you ask how it's a bad thing, it's against their _will_. they become bound to him, his every beck and call. it's unfounded."

"sort of like what happened tonight?" she pushes her duvet off of her. "unfounded. seriously. you call people out on their shit, but do you even _realize_ the things you do are just as bad, if not worse? because you think you're doing the right thing. and don't even try to feed me all that 'greater good' bull."

there's silence. it stretches and stretches and stretches until it's almost deafening.

"it's not for the greater good," stefan says slowly. for a split moment he looks a little pained, but it's gone the second she spots it. "it's for elena."

caroline leans back against her headboard. "you love her."

"aren't you supposed to be the smart one here?"

"no, i'm the pawn." she's the sheriff's daughter.

stefan almost smiles. "so what's your move?"

—

damon may have all the teeth, but stefan's the one with the bite.

—

damon's smiling at her as he waits for her on her porch.

he's blocking the doorway. she still remembers how his teeth look wet with blood.

she doesn't have her stake on her; clever of him to wait so long she lets herself believe it's okay to let her guard down.

"elena's not here," she tells him cattily.

"i know," he replies. "just wanted to see how my feisty little fighting barbie was doing. word on the street is you've been hanging with my brother."

she shoulders her way past him, but he catches her arm before she can make a grab for the doorknob. "there are consequences to these things. an eye for an eye."

his eyes flick down to her neck. she can see a glint of a fang. she wrenches herself away from him, but he has her backed against the door in no time.

"elena didn't love you back," she spits out, "so you bit her. an eye for an eye."

"i never said i was rational," damon rolls his eyes and lunges at her.

—

"damon's a dick," bonnie says. "do you want me to spell him for you? i know how to make his brains boil."

"teach me," she says through gritted teeth as bonnie dabs the wound at her neck with her witchy herbs. she's so angry her eyes are welling up with tears, and she keeps reaching up to swipe at them, jostling bonnie in the process.

"stay still," bonnie reprimands gently.

"he freakin' bit me. he _fed on me_." her shoulders heave as she lets out a quiet sob. "i thought the vervain—"

"sometimes they build up an immunity against it," bonnie says, biting her lip. "there. all done."

caroline just nods, her tears tracking steadily down her cheeks. she's learned a long time ago how to cry silently. bonnie sits next to her and holds her close, stroking her hair. "we'll get him for this, caroline. we will. i promise."

"no." she shakes her head. her hair whips saltily against her cheeks. "that would make me just as bad as him, just as bad as klaus. i am not stooping to their level."

"you'd let him do this to you?"

"i didn't _let _him," caroline says as she clenches her fists. "he took this from me."

she stands abruptly. she appreciates the gesture, but she doesn't need bonnie's gentleness right now. "where can i find elena?"

—

at the grille. duh.

she's having lunch with stefan.

except stefan's not eating, but brooding, and elena's determinedly looking away. she sighs, and orders a milkshake. this is probably going to take a while.

—

matt brings her vanilla milkshake, extra whipped cream, along with a cup filled with cherries.

"what's this for?" she asks, but her mouth is already watering.

"you always ask for extras." matt shrugs.

he's sweet. observant. "what's wrong with your hand?"

matt flexes his bandaged hand and winces a little. "got on the wrong side of the originals."

"the originals?"

"the mikaelsons," matt says blithely. "don't you—oh right. you're new. oh man, didn't they tell you this?" he pauses. "oh shit, am i gonna get in trouble for telling you this?"

"i'm…" she licks her lips. prays this will work. "i'm the sheriff's daughter."

matt visibly relaxes. "oh. cool. right. if you're in for the long haul, then you gotta know. the originals are _whack_."

—

she stumbles her way home.

her neck still hurts – a throb-throb-throbbing, but it doesn't measure against the throbbing she feels in her temples. she packs her bags in a frenzy and leaves the house. she doesn't leave a note.

her stake's in her pocket, along with some old-school pepper spray, but she doesn't feel like walking right now. the drive to elena's house is silent, her fingers drumming anxiously against her steering wheel a little too familiarly, and she realizes she's drumming out the beat of her heart.

she forces her fingers to stop.

—

"we're getting out of here," she blurts out as soon as elena's let her in. she dumps her duffel bag on the floor and points at it. "i packed."

"clearly you did," elena says. her brown eyes widen and dart. "caroline, what's going on?"

"we're going away," she says, already striding down the hall in lengthy steps. "do you keep your bags in your…"

the words die on her tongue because damon's standing at the top of the stairs.

"fighting barbie," he greets genially. "weird seeing you here at this hour."

she takes a stumbling step back, and bumps into a solid chest. she whirls around.

it's stefan.

"i'm keeping her safe," he tells her, a little reproachful.

—

so here's the deal:

"i wasn't being clear. he killed elena's aunt. he killed many people to get where he is today. they are dead because of him," stefan intones. "did i miss any iterations?"

they're standing on her front porch, where she'd been not fifteen minutes ago.

her duffel bag's by her feet.

this is how you spell rejection.

"you didn't think to tell me sooner?" she hisses. "what about when i became your lamb for slaughter at the damn ball? you wanted to see what he would do."

stefan doesn't bother looking guilty. he probably isn't. "you wanted to die."

"i _wanted_—" she stops. "you know what. not worth it. not with you. you've killed. should you be put down too? they were people too, stefan, and they had people who loved them the way elena loved aunt jenna. just because there's no one here to cry for them doesn't make all that go away."

stefan is so still. "are you defending him?"

"i'm not," she snaps, perplexed.

"then why are you so—"

"because i am not doing this!" she screams in his face. "i am not getting attached to this stupid little town with its stupid little problems! i'm getting _out, _i'm not going to be looking back. i'm nothing but a fucking _pawn_ to all of you, just because i'm not in your inner circle of supernatural happenings."

she's so done with this shit.

in the blink of an eye, stefan has her backed against the door. it's a little too familiar, and she pushes against him. the difference between the two brothers is that he actually steps back.

—

the doorbell rings.

liz isn't home to answer it, and she swings her feet down from the arm rest and folds a corner of _lolita_ down, irritated.

"who is it?" she calls as she's stepping down the hall. she can see through the glass partition that it's not someone she knows.

she opens the door cautiously.

"hi," he says, giving an awkward little wave. "i'm tyler. i'm a hybrid, klaus—"

"made you," caroline finishes.

"the very first," he says with a hint of pride. "i came here because you've been, uh, summoned."

caroline stares at him, and then shuts the door.

—

_summoned_.

what is she, a dog?

—

she spends the day at the park. the bench is warmed by the morning sun and leaves cast dappled shadows on her arms.

there's a cupcake in her hands and an unlit candle poked right through the icing. at least liz hadn't forgotten.

"it was the dreaded word, wasn't it?" klaus gives a mockery of a groan as he drapes himself in the seat next to her. "i told tyler not to use it – a lady wouldn't like it, i said, but tyler – he's not the brightest of his kind."

"how chivalrous of you," she offers.

"you tried to take elena away from me." the arm he has slung behind her feels a little too casual, and he's just _humming_ with some sort of vibrant adrenaline. "i really did not appreciate that."

great. he's come to kill her. he's just rearing to rip her heart right out of her chest. she feels her hands grow clammy around her cupcake, her heart thump just a little bit faster.

klaus's smile widens, slow the way thick, dark blood would pool.

"freaking _great_," she groans, slumping back against his arm. "i just have to die on my birthday, don't i? it's like the universe is conspiring against me. it's not even _poetic_."

klaus tilts his head. "it's your birthday?"

"i'm sure it wouldn't mean anything to you," she says. "aren't you like, a bajillion or something?"

"i happen to love birthdays, caroline," he chuckles. "there's a certain inviolability to them, don't you think? killing you today would be sacrilege." he glances down at her cupcake. "you haven't blown out your candle."

"i'm still wondering what to wish for."

klaus stretches his head back, staring at the same spot in the leaves overhead that she's staring at. "how about a thousand more wishes, love? one of them being your survival."

"all i want," caroline sighs, "is to get out of this town."

"you haven't let it win you over yet," he says, but there's understanding in there. somewhere.

(she likes to think so.)

(but she also hates the thought of them seeing anything eye to eye.)

"what's there to love? vampire or not, it's pretty much set in stone. i'm never going to leave. if i leave, i'm selfish. if i stay, i'll die. slowly." caroline blinks up at the leaves. she is _not_ crying. "and when it's finally time for me to go, i wouldn't even mind. it would be a sweet release."

klaus is quiet for some time. when he finally speaks, his voice is gruff. "what do you want for your birthday?"

she turns to look at him. she saw in his eyes the entire universe. "tell me about the world."

—

the afternoon sun scorches and beats and whistles, but never touches the vast stillness of his garden. she's spread out in the grass under his weeping willow tree, pulling tufts of it in her fingers. she tastes the nectar of the flowers he passes her, fresh and sweet in her throat. occasionally he comes and joins her in the grass.

klaus tells her stories of roaring battles, the burst of gunfire, moonlight climbs to the very top of the great pyramid of cheops. his narrative never seemed to lose its colour, every single anecdote, whether long or short, became a story in itself. she half listens, half dreams, her hair curled in the sweet dew of the grass, her back cushioned by the gentle slope of the ground.

she rolls herself onto her elbows and watches the way his lips form around words, watches them tilt into an almost nostalgic smile, her toes pointed, her bare feet swinging.

he tells her of his sister. "rebekah's in rome right now, with elijah."

she sticks a bit of grass between her lips. "you didn't go with them?"

"i have more pressing matters here," he tells her a little sharply.

"your little hybrid family."

klaus leans back against the tree bark. "my little hybrid family, who do not betray me half as much as my own flesh and blood do."

she thinks of her mother, of liz, straining away at her desk job by day, making negotiations with vampires like klaus at night. maybe it'll be her in thirty, forty years.

"tell me more," she finds herself pleading, laying back down against the grass again.

she feels his fingers find her hair, so soft she wonders if she's just imagining it. they brush and they untangle, they knot and they braid. it's so soothing she closes her eyes, her neck foolishly open, her heart stupidly exposed.

"there's a whole world out there, caroline. just waiting for you." his voice is just as deceptively soft as his fingers. "great cities, art."

his fingers trace down her temple. "genuine beauty."

her eyelashes flutter open. "take me, then."

klaus leans down, his nose almost rubbing against hers. it's like he's peering into her soul, trying to find an unterior motive. "what makes you think i won't kill you tomorrow?"

she sits up slowly, and he pulls back – just a little. "because you're sitting here telling me your life story when you clearly have more…" she smiles sweetly, "pressing matters at hand."

she raises a hand to his face, traces her thumb against his bottom lip, watches him intently as he tries not to react to it. his eyes are dark, and he could kill her or he could kiss her, she really can't tell.

but isn't he a lonely, powerful thing? just one touch and he's left in shambles in her hands. "you should save me," she whispers. "i think i'd let you."

"love," he says, and it's astounding coming from him, his hoarse voice, the way he looks at her like she's something to be remarked upon, a flick of her wrist and even the stars shiver. "you don't need saving."

right. she nods. alright. her eyes cast downwards, but then his finger is tilting her chin up again. "but i'll take you. i'll be damned, but i'll take you. wherever you want. paris, rome, tokyo – it's your call."

she feels her heart swelling and she flashes him a smile so brilliant, so resilient, that he actually gives one back.

—

all she had to do was ask.

.

.

.

_fin_

* * *

**thanks for reading! if you enjoyed this, and if you care to, please read the sequel to this as well - "park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor", which is quite different to this but every bit as klaroline.**


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